Lee APP press first thoughts

[Led]

Greetings all, I thought you might like know my first experiences with the Lee APP. My unit arrived yesterday from MidSouth. Unboxing and setup took about an hour. I was unable to skip reading the instructions as there are enough small parts to cause confusion. Adjustment for case sizing and deprimeing was fairly straight forward. The most annoying item is the drop tube for the cases. Anytime you change caliber this tube needs to be adjusted. It's not hard but it's something I'm going to try and minimize. Once it was setup I was amazed at the speed. It took longer to load the drop tube than to size/deprime the entire stack. I'm currently using the single tube as the larger automatic feeder is on back order. I processed 350 32acp cases in about 20 min. The only issue I had while sizing/depriming is the shell holder would slowly rotate in it's mount. After a bit of rotation it would get out of line enough to cause a jam. Clearing the jam was simple as was recentering the shell holder. It's an issue I'm going to look into tonight. Other than that the press worked perfectly. I'm really looking forward to the APP priming tool.

Thanks,
Stephen

[Spedsterguy]

I have one as well, it is a amazing piece of equipment. I had a issue with the swage dies. Turns out lee made a update to the swage pins. I called them and was given the parts for free. I installed the new pins.It now works awesome, I can swage cases as fast as I can pull the handle.

[onelight]

They are a great addition to the bench , really speed things up for some of the boring tasks . I use mine mainly for de-caping before case cleaning. For me if it did nothing else it would be worth what it cost

[poppy42]

Well since i got mine, late last spring, i've de-capped close to 20,000 9mm cases, thousands of 45,380,38 special,357 mag and 5.56. without any issuses worth mentioning! I have also sized about the same amount of boolets in the same calibers! I love it! I know there are other presses that might do thing faster, might be built better, etc. but not for the price of the Lee App press! One thing I would suggest a new user get is a seconed case activator ( the litle do hicky that hold the gripper fingers) keep one set up with large fingers and one with the small fingers. Its a heck of easier to change out the whole slider, than it is to change the fingers. As for filling the tubes, I attached a cheep funnel to the feed tube and picked up a lenght of pex tubing, cut it into pieces the same lenght as the drop tubes. beleave it or not the lenght of the drop tubes is engeneered, try and make it longer and they don't work. Now i just fill up a dozen tubes at a time. The funnel aides in filling the drop tube. The whole setup cost me about $4.00. I know i could have bought the case feeder from Lee, I just couldn't see paying half the price that the whole press cost for a case feeder. It's not that i'm cheep, just broke! LOL

[Gtrubicon]

I adapted my case feeder from my Dillon 650 to the app press, man can you process brass in a hurry.

[Led]

I adapted my case feeder from my Dillon 650 to the app press, man can you process brass in a hurry.

Pictures?

Thanks,
Stephen

[GasGuzzler]

Had a couple issues with mine after about 10K cycles. It's fine for what it costs just don't like how Lee said you could resize brass when it came out and now says not to. I had to get some replacement parts ... the threaded adapter stripped while sizing brass (lee sent parts for free) and the carrier wore out (has to pay shipping but parts were free). Had to hone the base of the 4-tube case feeder (not part of the APP but a Lee part) to get 7.62X39 and .45 Colt brass to fall through. I have an extra Lee collator out of the deal and my bullet sizing adapters just came in this week so I am ready to try that.

[BK7saum]

I bought one strictly for bullet sizing and ppssibly depriming and primer pocket swaging. It may work fine for sizing straight wall pistol brass lighlly lubed , but all my bottleneck cases are for bolt guns, so I want precision on those.

Lee states to use regular shellholders for resizinf, so not automated for those anyway. Express shellholders have minimal purchase on case rim, anyway for pulling a case out of a sizing die.

[Led]

I'm sizing .32 acp and 357 mag brass. After a few thousand cases the only issue is the occasional case feed jam. That's easy to clear. It's so fast I'm willing to tolerate the occasional hick up. I would agree that sizing rifle brass would be a bad idea.

Later,
Stephen

[tinsnips]

I have sized about 8000 9mm cases without any troubles.

[bobzM1A]

I sized over 900 7.62 Nato in 3 hours on my APP with no problems. I use lanolin mixed with alcohol for case lube. I have sized probably 2000 .223 so far, also no problems. I have had 9mm pull out of the shellholder in a carbide die without lube, so lube seems to be the key.

[pastera]

I only use my APP for depriming and sizing coated cast bullets

The feed tube adapters are infuriating as supplied - cut them apart and pick up some 1/4-20 hardware to setup all four.

I modeled the tube adapters so if anyone wants a model with a custom size PM me and I'll send out a STL. 3d printing in PLA is more than strong enough.
I also modeled the adapters for the case pusher - would need to look to confirm but I believe that was done in OpenScad so I can post the code if anyone wants to make their own custom guides. Helps stop the occasional bullet tossed across the reloading room.

[Tom Myers]

I only use my APP for depriming and sizing coated cast bullets

The feed tube adapters are infuriating as supplied - cut them apart and pick up some 1/4-20 hardware to setup all four.

I modeled the tube adapters so if anyone wants a model with a custom size PM me and I'll send out a STL. 3d printing in PLA is more than strong enough.
I also modeled the adapters for the case pusher - would need to look to confirm but I believe that was done in OpenScad so I can post the code if anyone wants to make their own custom guides. Helps stop the occasional bullet tossed across the reloading room.

I would appreciate a chance to model them on my recently acquired 3D Printer.

Thanks.

[Led]

My case feeder finally arrived. It's a much needed improvement over the single tubes. Even with 32 acp cases it does pretty well getting the rim's facing down. Maybe one or two every tube would be faced up. Not a big deal for the speed.

Later,
Stephen

P.S. My ACP arrived yesterday.

[1eyedjack]

The collator holes are a wee bit large for some cases -9mm was troublesome until I took a plastic ice cream bucket lid & made approx 3" circle with 4 holes drilled with a 1/2" wood bit to match the existing drop tube holes with a 1/4" hole in the center for 1/4x20 button head screw to hold it in place. Cut the rim up cases by a bunch!!

[onelight]

My case feeder finally arrived. It's a much needed improvement over the single tubes. Even with 32 acp cases it does pretty well getting the rim's facing down. Maybe one or two every tube would be faced up. Not a big deal for the speed.

Later,
Stephen

P.S. My ACP arrived yesterday.

I think I heard this on this forum wish I remembered who from , but in the collator there is a hole in the center if you stick a 22lr empty case in the hole it can help the cases drop in base first .

[Gtrubicon]

Sorry Led, don’t know how to post pictures. The pictures are on evil bay, I sent dimensions to a fella, who is a member here and he made some 3D printed parts and sent them to me, the parts worked perfectly to adapt the Dillon 650 case feed to the Lee app. I have also been using the case feed to feed powder coated Bullets into the app for sizing, it’s fast fast fast! Look up bigwestradingco, the kit is still for sale.

[GasGuzzler]

Used the four-tube Lee case feeder to size some powder coated .357 bullets yesterday and found it worked very well with the exception of having to use my left hand each cycle to pull the carrier far enough left to drop another bullet (it needs to move an additional 1/16" only). I spent 10 minutes converting it from case feed to bullet feed and spent ZERO minutes fine tuning that portion of the cycle since I only had 53 bullets to size. I found an extra collator too...new in the box and unneeded.

[tinsnips]

I cut 1/2 pex tubing pieces 3/8 of a inch long an pressed them into the Lee collector . That trick will fix the 9mm cases from falling into the tubes up side down. Cheap fix works great.